Last day in Pisa, and Italy, and the Ryanair Adventure

Up the leaning tower of Pisa to view the hazy city, a crazy pose in front of the Leaning Tower – a must, apparently after watching everyone else do so - visiting the cathedral, a walk around the Pisa's Cathedral Square and it is time to depart or the Galileo Galilei Airport.

 Uh oh, what a scene – why are the xray machines not working?  Why are there crowds standing around not moving? Delays?  Cancellations ?? Fog???  We never saw any clouds – just distant haze….  Old radar?  Over cautious pilots?  We spoke to many interesting people during our long wait – and heard about lives, families, work etc and the inconvenience.  Very late in the evening we were all informed that there would be no more flights and that there were stretchers upstairs. Really??? Sure enough, a large room was crammed with them, each stretcher accompanied with a thick orange plastic wrapped blanket.  This was not good enough!  Wait, our flight is being called – a bus to a hotel?  That’s better!   After travelling for an hour, at 2.30am we arrived at a Novotel Hotel at an airport north of Florence.  At this striking but very old hotel, we were quickly registered and departed to our warm room of 2 single beds with one small pillow each and a very stained, cigarette butted carpet, for 4 hours sleep before breakfast and an hour’s trip back to the Pisa Airport.  London, here we come 18 hours later – at last!!!!

Our adventure at Cinque Terre

Why go to this lovely world heritage site in winter?  Why not? Actually, I would go again, at any time, and stay longer, and swim and walk....
 The dramatic cliff scape, the buildings are perched on top of each other going up the mountains and are such lovely colours - I wonder if they were always so colourful???

There were no ferries at this time of year  for us enjoy the dramatic views of  villages from the ocean, so we travelled by train to Le Spezia, the main port of the area, then changed to a local train. We first visited Monterosso –the furthest away and with a lovely long beach. Oh, the openness,the freedom, the fresh air and the quiet wave shushing after all those days of narrow smoke stinking streets!!  Bliss….   feeling of freedom...... This and another village got flooded out in 2011, apparently due to global warming, however all the locals got together and fixed everything so today, one would never know.    A quick look around the town at street level and on the train to the smaller village of Vernazza to watch a fishing dingy being hoisted up from the waters far below….  Travelling to Europe in Winter, is so cool - there are no crowds or queues.   However an Asian tour group joined us on the train and we wondered why they did not get off at Corniglia.  This was the only town that had a ‘Welcome to our Village’ sign  and a barking welcome dog - and we soon found out why – there was a switchback series of many stairs to the village high in the hills!  Nothing was open, being the time of year, but thankfully there was a bus service to deliver us to the station down below. Corniglia – visited!! We decided to  eat at Manorola, perched on the edge of the cliff and discovered that the Asian Tour group was dining at a very nice looking restaurant in the main street. As we had plenty of time  for the train before travelling to the next village we elected to settle in for a long lunch of local fare  -  a very good decision, we discovered.  At Cinque Terre one is expected to go walking, we knew, so we elected to do the shortest walk from Riomaggore. However a few minutes into the walk we discovered a very padlocked gate and a notice informing us that the walkway was closed due to slips…….

We then decided to walk up what we thought was the main street only to discover that this was a well  off residential area – odd!!  Back to the station to find an interesting wall lined tunnel  of art leading to the busy main street leading upwards……but we have done enough ups!  Now when is the train leaving to Le Spezia?????

An evening in Pisa, Italy, mid December 2015

While we were travelling by train to Pisa we became rather concerned when the blue sky changed to haze which became more and more dense as we travelled.  However it did clear and we arrived, late afternoon to pleasant grey balmy day at Pisa.

As it was still afternoon we  decided to visit the Palazzo Blu, about 30 minutes walk away from our hotel,was open til 8pm and thought we would check it out.  However, upon arrival we were surprised to be charged a significant fee to enter. But we dutifully paid and trouped upstairs to admire the impressive art and original décor of the palace museum. Most interesting was a collection of drawings of early buildings and scenery of Pisa. Collected and drawn by Adele and her daughter Adele, many of the buildings either do not exist or have  changed, making this a very valuable and treasured history of Pisa.  Just as we were about to leave, we noticed that people were going downstairs to the basement. We decided to follow and  discovered the real reason for the exhorbitant  entry fee - The Toulouse Lautrec Exhibition! This large dramatic display of his works and of the era that he lived and worked –  the stories and history  - most interesting! Here til February and well worth the visit if anyone is passing by.

We also wondered why all the Pisa crowds had decided to cruise down the Main street and why everything was humming.  It turned out that this Sunday evening was one of a series of Christmas festivities.  The featured band, Soul Wood treated us all to a couple of hours of excellent jazz – a perfect end of day event at Pisa. 

Our travelling from New Zealand to London Adventure

Perhaps the most interesting sights when flying from New Zealand to Australia are the cloud formations. Today’s display was ‘out of the box.’ For the past few days in Auckland the days had been grey with much low cloud cover, so to rise above this blanket into the dusky blue brightness of the early evening sky was quite ‘uplifting.’  (you may laugh….)  We did not have to wait long for the first display. In the distance a line of black puffs of cloud rose above the border of the now dark grey blanket below and morphed into a long spinal skeleton of bones against a white sky.  Then they moved on to become the Southern Alps of our South Island  - a fitting way to leave New Zealand, we agreed.  But Australia, not to be outdone - after the sun set, rearranged the clouds into two charcoal vertical bands – separated by a band of brilliant orange!     Welcome to Australia!!!

We are now on our final leg of our flight to London, without any incident so far – apart from the fact that Christ spent ages in the shower at the Dubai airport and I had to send in an attendant to get him to hurry along – and we are enjoying the scenery outside, that is if you like rows and rows of rocky mountains sticking out of beige desert sands. Not as colourful as Australia’s outback.  Soon we ascended high over more rocky mountain ranges and plateaus which, to my surprise, were all snow covered.

 Just before our last trip this way there had been a dramatic sand storm and we had to divert to Bahrain to refuel, then return to Dubai so we saw nothing of the terrain.   From the air Dubai looks a bit like what Auckland might become   - many suburbs of apartments and occasional blocks of leafy suburbs and a city center of tall buildings.  Otherwise lots of sandy sand spits and bars, a few ships – no concentrated port that I could see - but no doubt there is one!!  So here we are on the plane – 7 hours to go  - after 17 hours of flying the seats are getting very hard – great to be offered thin mattresses and chardonnay to make the going easier……..

Thank you to the assistant at the Melbourne’s duty free shops who was able to help us with daughter’s duty free order.  ‘She has had 8 months to come up with her order and she text’s me when we are travelling!!! ‘ grumbles father.  Five minutes after tapping this lovely lady on the shoulder   HELP! – only in more colourful language – all was sorted.  BTW Christian Dior fragrance prices have risen significantly over the last vey weeks. I had to pay about NZ $40 more than expected – I should have bought when I first enquired (note to self).

Time for a doze – or shall I watch a movie??  All these choices when flying…

Travelling around Venice Part 1

My first and  and all time favourite impression of Venice is walking out of the Santa Lucia Railway station, which is just like any other railway station in Italy, into a completely different world. Different buildings, different transport system, different noises – the quiet purrs of canal boats, the low murmurings of people, and No Traffic! 

Today was even better   - there were hardly any people around!   We checked into Hotel Abbazia, one of our favourite  hotels  - beautiful rooms, and foyers and better still, handy to the railway station so you cannot get lost looking for it – on other occasions we have spent much time looking for hotels along Venice’s many narrow and identical (to us) ‘road’ ways – never again……

It is always a delight to stroll around Venice, especially when there are no crowds!  As always upon our visits here, we discover new places.   Today’s discovery was one of a chain of  small Irish pubs!  Not quite the same as other Irish pubs world wide but definitely Irish, warm, friendly and with reasonably priced beer and cheap sandwiches -  ideal for a walking city!  And yes, we were doing a lot of walking on this day – St Marks Square – still no crowds apart from a few groups of tourists, my favourite lingerie shop, the Black Cat  Shop for our Black Cat Calendar, the Rialto bridge and markets and well, generally strolling – oh look – there is another of those little Irish pubs……..